It’s a truth as old as academia: graduate students moan about the lengths of their dissertations. But which grad students are most entitled to complain? Herewith, a chart that compares dissertation lengths by major.
Poor anthropologists
Not only is this robot advanced enough to walk upright and play a game of ping pong, but it also looks like a total badass.
ICE WORM, genus Mesenchytraeus
Surprising as it seems, iceworms live quite successfully in glaciers and adjacent perennial snowfields all year, surviving and thriving at temperatures around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, zero degrees Celsius. This might seem impossible, but actually the tissue in animal cells does not freeze at the same temperature water does, but at a few degrees lower. Most animals would die long before reaching this temperature. The iceworm has adapted to cold temperatures and functions best at zero degrees Celsius. The summer temperature of the glacier ice and slush usually stays at about zero Celsius. In winter, due to some unique physical properties of water, and the snow’s insulating qualities, the glacier temperature probably never falls below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, except at the surface. Therefore, the iceworm may never be confronted with freezing to death because he penetrates deep into the glacier’s depth. On the other hand, higher temperatures are harmful to iceworms. When heated to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, the worms melt and die.
The Latin name given the iceworm species gives a clue to its habits. Solifugus, or “sun-avoider” appropriately describes this worm that hides deep in the ice and snow during bright sunny days, emerging as dusk progresses to feed. Scientists believe that iceworms feed on snow algae, pollen grains, ice and snow. In turn, iceworms are preyed upon by snow buntings and other birds. Though commonly found in the more porous snow, even when they are found in “solid ice”, the iceworms seem to move with ease. It has been theorized that they crawl around the ice crystals that make up the glacier.”
